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His secret headquarters had been only a few hundred yards past the supply depot, and the battalion had overrun it
It was too much news for Dalleson to assimilateHe ordered the battalion to bivouac for the night, and in the interim moved up every man he could findHeadquarters and service companies were stripped of everyone but the cooksBy the next morning he had fifteen hundred men behind the Japanese lines and the flanks were rolled up by afternoon
Cummings returned the same day from ArmyAfter much pleading, after giving his considered opinion that he could not end the campaign quickly without invading Botoi Bay, he was granted a destroyerIt had followed behind him, was supposed to reach the peninsula by the following morningIt would be impossible for him to order it to return now
Instead, he had the staff working all night to divert troops from the jungle to the tip of the peninsulaWhen morning came he was able to send two rifle companies out in assault boats to invade Botoi BayThe destroyer appeared on schedule, shelled the beach, and came in close to shore to latest louis vuitton shoulder bag give direct support
A few Jap snipers greeted the first wave with an occasional shot and then fledIn half an hour the invading troops joined up with some units maneuvering behind the shattered Japanese frontBy that evening the campaign was over except for the mopping up
In the official history of the campaign sent to Army, the invasion of Botoi Bay was given as the main reason for breaking through the Toyaku LineThe invasion was aided, the history was to say, by strong local attacks which made some penetrations of the Japanese lines
Dalleson never understood quite what had happenedIn time he even believed that it was the invasion that had decided itHis only desire was to be promoted to captain, permanent grade
In the excitement, everyone forgot about recon
12
ON THE same afternoon that Major Dalleson was mounting his attack, the platoon continued to climb Mount AnakaIn the awful heat of the middle slopes they bogged downEach time they passed through a draw or hollow the air seemed to be refracted from the blazing rocks, and after a time their cheek cheap replica chanel handbag muscles ached from continual squintingIt was a minor pain and should have been lost in the muscle cramps of their thighs, the sullen vicious aching of their backs, but it became the greatest torment of the marchThe bright light lanced like splinters into the tender flesh of their eyeballs, danced about the base of their brains in reddened choleric circlesThey lost all account of the distance they had covered; everything beneath them had blurred, and the individual torments of each kind of terrain were forgottenThey no longer cared if the next hundred yards was a barren rock slope or a patch of brush and forestEach had its own painful disadvantagesThey wavered like a file of drunks, plodded along with their heads bent down, their arms slapping spasmodically at their sidesAll their equipment had become leaden, and a variety of sores had farrowed on every bony knob of their bodiesTheir shoulders were blistered from the pack bands, their waists were bruised from the jouncing of their cartridge belts, and their rifles clanked abrasively against their sides, raising balenciaga bag blisters on their hipsTheir shirts had long washed lines of white where the perspiration had dried
They moved numbly, straggling upward from rock to rock, panting and sobbing with exhaustionAgainst his will Croft was forced to give them a break every few minutes; they rested now for as long a period as they marched, lying dumbly on their backs, their arms and legs spread-eagledLike the litter-bearers, they had forgotten everything; they did not think of themselves as individual men any longerThey were merely envelopes of sufferingThey had forgotten about the patrol, about the war, their past, they had even forgotten the earth they had just climbedThe men around them were merely vague irritating obstacles into which they blunderedThe hot glaring sky and the burning rock were far more intimateTheir minds scurried about inside their bodies like rodents in a maze, concentrating fruitlessly on first the quivering of an overworked limb and then on the smarting of a sore, became buried for many minutes in the agony of drawing another breath
Only two things ever intruded on louis vuitton miroir handbags thisThey were afraid of Croft and this fear had become greater as they grew more exhausted; by now they waited for his voice, plunged themselves forward a few additional yards each time he flicked them with a commandA numb and stricken apprehension had settled over them, an unvoiced and almost bottomless terror of him
And in opposition to that, they wanted to quit; they wanted that more than anything they had ever hungered forEach step they advanced, each tremor of their muscles, each pang in their chests generated that desireThey moved forward with a dumb blistering hatred for the man who led them
Croft was almost as exhausted; by now he appreciated the breaks as much as they did, was almost as willing to allow each halt to drag out to double its intended lengthHe had forgotten the peak of the mountain, he wanted to quit too, and each time a break ended he fought a quick battle with himself, exposed himself to all the temptations of rest, and then continuedHe moved on because somewhere at the base of his mind was the directive that climbing this mountain was prada knock offs necessary
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